


breathe, repeat

by valkyriered



Series: hearts and bones [4]
Category: Fruits Basket
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety Attacks, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Medication, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sharing a Bed, Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25655071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valkyriered/pseuds/valkyriered
Summary: Hatori listens to the blankets shift as Rin lies down. He’s not sure how comfortable she can get— she’s still skin and bones. She doesn’t touch him, but she’s close enough that he can hear her soft breathing.“Tori-nii?” She asks.“Mm?”“Do you love Akito?”--Contains manga spoilers. Part of my hearts & bones AU.
Relationships: Sohma Hatori & Sohma Rin
Series: hearts and bones [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809343
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	breathe, repeat

  
Hatori starts awake to the feeling of his mattress dipping. It’s dark, and he strains to make out the shadowy shapes in his room.

“Isuzu?” He whispers.

“It’s me.” She says softly. He listens as she pushes back the covers and climbs into bed with him.

“Okay.” He says, blinking up at his ceiling, still waking up. “Do you need anything?” 

“No.”

“Are you feeling alright?”

“I’m fine.”

Hatori blindly reaches out in the darkness, and his hand bumps her nose and cheek before finally making it to her forehead. He holds it there for a second, and she stays obediently still. She feels warm, but not feverish.

“Okay.” He says, finally.

Hatori listens to the blankets shift as Rin lies down. He’s not sure how comfortable she can get— she’s still skin and bones. She doesn’t touch him, but she’s close enough that he can hear her soft breathing.

“Tori-nii?” She asks.

“Mm?”

“Do you love Akito?”

Hatori comes fully awake at that. For so long, his answer would have been of course. Of course he loves Akito. She is his God, the sun and moon revolve around her. He feels her in the back of his head, a warmth in his heart. More than that, she’s his family, a young girl that he watched grow up, that he’s held and carried.

But she pushed Rin out a window, imprisoned her, cut her hair and shut her off from the world. She hit Momiji countless times, left him crying with a bloody and scratched up face. She’s his God, but she’s also a human child, flawed, torturing the people around her. His feelings for her are indescribable, and not for the first time Hatori is grateful that there are no true Jyuunishi parent and child pairs. He can’t imagine the war between a parent’s desire to protect their child, and a love for their God. Even as a shadow of a parent to two Jyuunishi children, Rin’s question is agitating— it’s an answer he prefers to not even think about.

Does he love Akito?

 _Yes_. Yes. Always yes, even as the answer rips him apart with guilt. 

“It’s complicated.” Hatori settles on saying. He knows it’s not enough— for Rin, any answer that’s not ‘no’ will hurt her. 

“Do you love me?” Rin asks dully. It sounds like she’s already bracing herself for a ‘no’, like she knows the answer.

Rin has been his for almost four years, and she never asked this before. Hatori’s not sure where these questions are coming from, but he has an idea of it. Being locked away was traumatizing for Rin. He watches every day as she rediscovers bits and pieces of normal life. Perhaps this is her way of trying to piece together the world around her. 

Either way, he owes her at least this. 

Hatori’s never told Rin he loves her. 

He’s never said that to Momiji, for that matter. He’s not sure if it’s something he would even say to an immediate family member— it’s a sentence that’s always been reserved for lovers. For Kana. They’re not exactly a family that expresses familial affection in words, much less words so intense and declarative. Ayame is an exception, but even then, the things he says feel performative enough that he can get away with saying them without exposing himself too much. 

Has he only said it to Kana?

No. He’s only said it to Kana and Akito. The realization is dizzying. Is that it? Is that all he’s had? Lost love and mourning, and then the shackles that he can't help but not want to escape?

Does he love Rin?

In his own way, perhaps. He wants to see her happy. He wants to protect her from the things that hurt her. When she smiles, he can’t help but smile too. It’s different from the way he loves Akito, which burns and aches with a focused intensity. It’s different than how he loves Kana, a longing that still pulls at him sometimes.

“Yes.” Hatori says, before the thought is even fully formed. Of course he loves her. That conclusion feels natural and easy, the exact opposite of figuring out his feelings for Akito. 

He doesn’t expect to hear a shaking inhale from her, as though she’s on the verge of crying. 

“Isuzu?”

“Then how can you still love him?” Rin asks, her voice horribly filled with tears, wavering as though she’s still trying to hold them back. “He hurt me, so h-how can you—“ 

“Isuzu.” Hatori breathes, rolling over to reach for her. She pushes him away.

“He _hurt_ me—“

“Isuzu, listen.” Hatori sits up. His reflex is to reach for her, but she’s curled in on herself, and he can tell that she doesn’t want to be touched, that she’s afraid of it right now. If it were anyone else, he’d point out that they can't stop loving Akito either, but he knows right now it would just cause her more pain. That she’s probably already plenty upset that she herself can’t stop loving Akito, even as her body aches from the pain she inflicted upon it.

“ _How_?” She asks. She sounds almost enraged, but there are tears streaming down her face, and she’s shaking so badly that Hatori is worried she’ll need to be sedated. “How can you? How can you?”

“Isuzu, _please_.” Hatori says, and he's surprised by how his voice cracks, suddenly aware of his own hand shaking. _Where did this come from?_ “Please, take a deep breath.”

“How can you love him? H-how do you just, exist—“ 

“Can I touch you?” 

“Why can’t I _stop_?” Rin sobs. She’s worked herself up enough that it sounds like she’s having trouble breathing, and Hatori is getting increasingly concerned. If she gets in too deep it can be hard to calm her down without medical intervention. 

“Please look at me.” 

“I can’t stop.” Rin’s voice is muffled, her face buried in her arms. “I can’t stop.” 

Hatori reaches over and turns his lamp on. He flinches at the sudden brightness, and Rin does as well, seeing even though her arms are covering her face. “Isuzu, look at me.”

“I can’t.” She whimpers, and Hatori isn’t sure if she’s answering his request, or it’s her continuing to repeat words to herself. Momiji does that sometimes— if he gets upset enough, he dissolves into just repeating the same sentence over again, until it’s long past meaningless, and just a self-soothing set of words for him to focus on. She’s not crying quite as loudly anymore, but her breathing is still shallow and coming too quickly. 

“You need to breathe.” Hatori says. “Try to take a deep breath.”

“I c-can’t.” She repeats. One of her hands comes up and tugs at her own hair, her knuckles turning white with the grip. 

“Stop.” He says, finally giving up on keeping his hands to himself. He firmly wraps his hand around her wrist and rubs the back of her hand with his thumb, starting to ease her hand out of her hair. “You’re hurting yourself. Try to take a deep breath.” 

“T-Tori-nii—“ She gasps. She jerks her wrist out of his hand, and before he can react, she has her hand wrapped around his, holding on tightly. It almost hurts, but Hatori just grips her hand back. “C-can’t—“

“Okay. Can I hold you?”

Rin nods quickly. She finally looks up at him. Her eyes are red, her face wet from tears and pale from fear. There are small red half-moons on her cheeks, and Hatori realizes that she’d been digging her nails into her face while she cried. A few of them broke the skin, and he imagines that it must sting from the tears. 

“Come here.” Hatori says, loosely wrapping his arms around her. She leans into him, and he holds on tighter, lets her bury her face against his shoulder, and fist her hands in the front of his shirt. She’s warm and solid in his arms, and he allows himself to briefly savor the feeling of it. She’s alive. He tries to ignore the way he can feel her spine and ribs through her clothes. 

It’s incredible how silently she’s able to fall apart, and Hatori realizes that it’s probably a skill she honed while locked away. Being too loud would upset someone— would upset Akito. He wonders if Akito demanded her silence, if Rin was punished for making noise. It’s upsetting to think of Akito hurting her, even as his eye begins to ache from the thought of it. He can feel Rin’s heart hammering against his chest, the way she tries to force her hands still. He takes slow, deep breaths, hoping to somehow get her to copy him. 

She’s still crying, he can feel the tears soaking into his shoulder and neck. He glances over at his clock. 3:15. He needs to be awake in three hours. He and Rin are supposed to go to the bookstore tomorrow— today, but Hatori doubts that she’ll feel up to it at this point. He wonders if she’ll even be able to sleep tonight, or if he’ll wake up tomorrow to find that she’s drawn something new and freshly upsetting. He’s glad that she has a medium to channel her feelings into, but some of the art she produces tears at him in a way that he’s not equipped to handle. She mostly keeps it to herself, but every now and then she’ll show him some new piece and look at him like she’s begging him to understand.

And he can’t— not the way she needs him to. There are things he isn’t quite ready for, things she’s already confronted but he can barely think about.

“Just breathe.” Hatori says softly. “Just breathe.” 

She reminds him so much of Akito sometimes. How many times had he done the same thing for her? How many times had he cradled her body through illness and tears? With her short hair, Rin even looks like Akito, and Hatori has to blink firmly to get the image out of his mind. The last thing Rin needs right now is for him to be distant. 

She’s still having trouble breathing, but she’s hiding it, gasping for air as quietly as possible. She’s still shaking like she’s terrified. She can’t breathe. She’s clutching him like a lifeline, and she’s trying, and she can’t breathe. 

“Can I give you something?” Hatori finally asks. He’s hesitant to give her too many anti-anxiety meds for fear of creating a dependency, but the anxiety itself is crushing her. She can’t sleep, she can’t eat— Hatori knows she needs to be on something stronger and more stabilizing for her depression, but he won’t prescribe it himself and she’s too scared to go see another doctor. She had never had a chance to heal from her parent’s abuse, had barely physically healed from being pushed out a window before being imprisoned for months. In an ideal world she would have a psychologist, but how would she even begin to talk about her pain without talking about the curse?

“Okay.” She says, gasping it out between shaking breaths. “Okay, okay.” Her eyes are huge and dark, and Hatori doesn’t know what she’s seeing, but he knows that she’s barely present right now. It’s upsetting to watch, worse knowing how much it will bother her later that it happened again. 

Her medication is locked in a drawer in his office, along with anything else that Hatori is worried the kids could abuse. He doesn’t lock up the liquor, only because if Rin or Momiji were interested in drinking, there’s countless places they could get ahold of anything they want. He knows for a fact that Shigure has offered alcohol to the children in the past. 

“I need to go get it. I’m going to get up.” 

She nods, hesitantly loosening her fingers from his clothing. He releases her, helps her untangle her shaking hands from him. “I’ll be right back.” He tells her. She doesn't respond, just withdraws back into herself, curling into a protective ball. 

Hatori leaves the door to his bedroom open, so he can hear her from his office just in case. She’s still disturbingly silent. He moves quickly, grabbing the drawer key from the top of his bookshelf and undoing the lock on his desk. The bottles are carefully organized, and he double-checks the label before carefully tipping out a single pill and then putting it back in the drawer. He methodically locks it up, re-hides the key, and then picks up the pill and a mug of tea that had gone cold from sitting abandoned on his desk earlier that day.

"Are you going to be sick?” Hatori asks when he gets back. “If you are, you should take it after.” 

She shakes her head. Hatori sits on the bed with her, places the tea on the bedside table. She doesn’t unfold from the ball she’s formed herself into. He very carefully reaches in and strokes her cheek, then gently lifts her chin. She looks miserable, dull-eyed and frightened and shaking. Definitely not fully present, then. 

“Open up.” Hatori murmurs. She obediently parts her lips, and he presses the pill into her mouth with his thumb. He picks up the leftover tea and carefully lifts it to her mouth. She drinks, lifting a hand to rest against the mug. He doesn’t give her a lot, afraid that if she has too much it’ll make her sick. 

“Okay?” He asks.

She nods. He reaches past her and puts the tea back on the nightstand. It’ll probably take some time for the medication to kick in, although she’s barely eaten that day, so hopefully she’ll metabolize it more quickly. 

"Can you lie down?” He asks. He pulls back some of the blankets, and she carefully lays herself down, shaking hands sliding down the sheets and pillows, tangling in the fabric like she’s trying to ground herself. He pulls the blankets back over her. Normally at this point he’d touch her hair, but she’s gotten sensitive to her hair being touched. He naturally expresses affection towards his younger cousins by ruffling their hair, and Rin's refusal to be touched in that way has left him at a loss for any comfortable way to casually touch her. 

She’s staring blankly into the distance, and he wants to bring her back but he knows the drugs will probably knock her out before she’s comfortably grounded. He sighs, sitting up in his bed and staring at his clock. It’s late. It’s late, and he’s tired, and Rin isn’t going to fall asleep for a while. He rubs at his bad eye. He’s on edge, still disoriented from waking up to something so intense and further set off by Rin’s ragged, shaking breathing that he can’t do anything about except wait. 

He normally doesn’t smoke in his bedroom, much less inside the house, but he leans over and collects his cigarettes and lighter from his nightstand. The familiar motions of putting a cigarette in his mouth, the comfortable noise of flicking open his lighter and the hiss as he lights it— they’re all calming in their own way.

He inhales the smoke. Slowly exhales. 

He leans over and takes his glasses and book from his nightstand as well, flipping the book open to his bookmarked page. Momiji and Rin both fold the corners of the pages. Hatori is the only one that actually bookmarks the pages, and even then, he uses receipts and scraps of paper. He slides his glasses onto his nose, and then he begins to read out loud. 

It’s not something Hatori’s particularly good at, but he’s seen Shigure do it plenty of times. Shigure’s been reading to Rin since she was very young. Hatori remembers seeing them flopped down on the grass, looking at a book together. 

Hatori’s barely aware of what he’s reading, just letting the words slide out of his mouth. He’s mostly paying attention to Rin. He pauses every now and then to take a drag of his cigarette and to glance over at her. She’s still dull-eyed and trembling, but her breathing has evened out more. It’s a good sign. Her medication is probably taking effect. 

“Isuzu?”

“Tori-nii.” She whispers. She looks exhausted. 

“How are you feeling?” He asks.

She shrugs. 

“Do you want to sleep?” 

“Yes.” She says hollowly. 

“Okay.” He closes his book.

He starts going about the process of getting ready to sleep— stubbing out his cigarette, putting away his book and glasses. Rin lays on her stomach, watching him go about the process. 

Hatori reaches to turn off the light, but before he does he stops himself and looks at her. She looks right back at him, meets his gaze steadily. He remembers when she couldn’t look him in the eye as a child. Even as she got older, she hesitated, and couldn’t hold his gaze for very long unless she was angry. When she’s angry she stares people down, shielded from the intimacy of it by her own rage. He knows she’s probably only doing it right now because she’s medicated and not quite present. Still, it tugs at him. He feels caught by an emotion he can’t quite name, something sweet and sad. 

It’s not like him to be particularly poetic or sentimental, but somewhere along the way Momiji and Rin managed to shape him into something softer. He’s not sure yet if he resents them for it. 

Hatori sighs, and then leans over and turns out the light. He lays down, listens to Rin’s breathing. Maybe she won’t have nightmares tonight. Maybe she’ll be able to sleep at some point. Having her in his bed always sets him on-edge and makes it harder for him to sleep. 

He’s not used to having a woman in his bed, and hearing her toss and turn always makes him worry. He’s never sure if she’s moving because she’s in pain, or because she feels ill, or if she’s just moving because that’s what people do while sleeping. 

Still, it’s even worse when he wakes up to complete silence from her. She became dangerously frail while imprisoned by Akito. Half-asleep, he’s almost always able to convince himself that Rin has died in her sleep, and he’ll frantically check her pulse until he’s managed to fully reassure himself. 

Ideally they would both comfortably sleep through the night, but neither has been capable of that in a long time.

Hatori closes his eyes. Rin is quiet. 

He flinches when he feels Rin’s cool hand touching his. She carefully tangles her fingers with his, and he squeezes her hand gently in response. 

“I’m sorry.” Hatori murmurs.

“It’s fine.” Rin says. The resignation in her voice is devastating. 

“You’ll feel better eventually. It takes time.”

“You always say that.”

“I mean it.”

Rin is quiet for a bit, but Hatori can feel the gears turning in her head. “How long did it take for you to get over your eye?”

And even after all this time, the casual mention of it has his breath catching in his throat. He could lie to her. He could lie, and she wouldn’t know any better.

But he doesn’t. She’s an adult, he owes her more than that. “I didn’t.” 

Instead of getting upset, Rin just sighs. “I didn’t think so.” 

“How did you know?”

“When I first came back after the hospital, you kept touching your eye like it was bothering you.” 

“Oh.” He hadn’t realized. He’s surprised Rin even noticed and remembered. She’d fled the hospital barely two weeks ago, and she’d been weaving in and out of lucidity ever since. 

“You don’t need to pretend that it’s easy.” Rin says. She’s quieter now, and Hatori can tell that she’s beginning to drift to sleep. Her fingers, tangled in his, loosen slightly.

“I don’t want to worry you two.”

“We worry anyways,” Rin says sleepily. “We got that from you.”

Hatori smiles despite himself. “Sorry about that.”

“Mmm.” She hums agreeably. 

“Goodnight.” Hatori murmurs. “Sleep well.” 

_No nightmares tonight, please._

“…’Night.” She breathes.

Hatori listens as her breathing slows, getting soft and rhythmic, unlike her staggered gasps earlier. 

She’s sleeping. He knows she’s just sleeping. Still, he disentangles her fingers from hers and moves them up to her wrist, feeling her pulse. She’s so skeletal now, he can easily feel her bones. Her pulse is steady. She’s fine. She’s breathing.

He leaves his hand there just in case.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr at https://valkyriered.tumblr.com/


End file.
